Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
We didn’t go back to the Pigeon Loft. A phone call from Wrigley when we’d stopped at Chester services for a coffee diverted us to head straight to the Brooklands Boating Basin, a former industrial inlet, because the third report that morning of a woman’s body floating in water had actually been accurate.
Since the discovery of Brooke O’Hara, we’d had multiple calls a day that ended up being false reports.
The best one had been a floating blow-up doll dressed in a nurse’s outfit.
The caller for this had been a mother, taking a morning walk with her baby in a pram and her three-year-old daughter, who’d been the one to spot the hand of Evelyn Smith, pointing out the painted nails, which still looked social media-worthy, even in death.
We hadn’t formally identified Evelyn, but the nails were a giveaway, having had a whole social media account dedicated to them.
The scene had been secured, the victim semi-submerged, trapped against debris cluster near the basin bank, the path of which was overgrown and dense with vegetation, other than the path which feet had worn when strolling by.
There was no clothing visible while she was in the water, just the hand and part of her forehead, hair floating up, mingling with the reeds, making it look like a modern-day Lady of Shalott.
I watched as the CSIs worked under Jenna’s instruction to move the body out of the water, three of them in waterproofs and waders, this procedure routine now.
The body was clothed, jeans and a light-coloured vest top, no shoes, although one of the crime scene techs had found a designer trainer further along which had been bagged.
From her front, there were no signs of injuries visible, but we all expected to see the knife marks in her back when she was at the mortuary.
My half-brother wandered over to me after overseeing the movement of her body, now securely bagged, into the vehicle.
“I believe you were expecting this one?” he said, taking off a pair of gloves. “The missing woman.”
“I’d hoped she’d disappeared to spite her boyfriend.” I really had. “Looks like that didn’t happen.”
“Unless she staged it, but that would be pretty desperate and require some help. How’s things going otherwise?”
“Okay.” I wanted to tell him about Cavan and Lucy, wanted to share it with someone who might understand. “How’s the house?”
“Coming on. No real problems so far. I’d best head off – are you on post-mortem duty?”
I had indeed pulled that short straw. “I am. I’ll see you there.”
Vinny and I got to the mortuary well after Nate had begun the postmortem, a quick team briefing to refocus everyone after what we’d learned over the course of the day so far delaying us, which I was more than happy with.
We didn’t always stay for the entire process, just enough to get an idea of what had happened, if that was possible.
The pathologist would send through an initial report, and then a longer, more detailed one would come through later on.
Nate looked over at us through the window, scrubbed up and almost unidentifiable.
It felt strange seeing him and Jenna Osei talking to each other, standing closer than would normally be professional, me knowing – along with everyone else – that they were in a relationship that was serious enough to warrant Nate moving to Manchester.
“Do you want the headlines?” He asked, passing an implement to his assistant. I didn’t want to know what it was used for.
“Go ahead,” Vinny said, hands in pockets, legs slightly spread, looking every inch like you expected a police sergeant to look if transplanted from the nineteen seventies. “When’s Saira back, by the way?”
“Next week, and you’re off the hook. She’s had a fling while she’s been on holiday so you’re yesterday’s news.” Nate looked amused.
“Thank fuck for that.” Vinny looked a little lighter. “So go on, who’ve we got here?”
“A well-nourished adult Caucasian female, who appears consistent with known identity. I’d agree with this being Evelyn Smith.
She’s five foot seven, and around sixty-two kilograms.” He accepted another implement from his assistant.
“Early stages of aquatic decomposition are consistent with less than twenty-four hours in water with skin slippage on her hands and feet, and mild bloating of her abdomen but no advanced marbling. So far, I’ve noted one penetrating stab wound located in the midline of the back, approximately between the T6 and T7 vertebrae, and the wound path suggests moderate force, and a narrow, double edged blade. ”
“Is it the same knife as before?” This was all sounding very familiar.
“It’s consistent with it, but I’ll do some more tests to ascertain if it’s the same.
But what you have that’s different is that she was drugged.
The entry of the stab wound is downward, back to front, and lightly left to right.
It’s pierced the left lung and caused blood in the chest cavity, which resulted in her death.
There’s evidence of needle marks in the elbow creases and her neck, but some of the healing indicates prior ongoing injection.
She was dead before she hit the water, as in I don’t think she was stabbed and then fell in the water.
Judging by her lungs, she was already deceased.
I’ve already had a good look at her. Stomach is empty also – she hadn’t eaten for at least twenty-four hours prior to death.
” He and his assistant careful turned Evelyn Smith over.
“You haven’t got repeated stab wounds like the others.
This was once and done. There are no skeletal injuries or cranial trauma, but there are marks around her wrists and ankles which suggest she was restrained.
I’ll let you have an idea of what with in the report. ”
“We have a few differences. She’s died within the last – how long?” I asked, trying to make it look as if I was studying the body but looking anywhere else.
“No more than forty-eight hours.” He took a couple of photos before handing the camera back to his assistant. “I would suggest that the man you have in custody is not the killer of this woman here.”
“We’ve released him on charges around harassment,” Vinny said. “Unless he was working with someone else, he’s got nothing to do with this.”
That was one of the updates.
Nate nodded. “I think you’re looking at the same killer as Morgan Skelton, just from the angle of the knife in the back. I’ll have more for you by tomorrow morning – tox will be in in the next few hours too.”
“That’s great – are we done?” I was very keen on getting out of there.
“You’re done.” He lifted up another scalpel and I was out the door before anyone said anything else.
My phone rang after I took my second lungful of fresh air outside of the building. A number I was familiar with but didn’t recognise flew up on the screen. The area code was Leeds.
“Hi, Sergeant McAllister – it feels strange calling you that! – it’s Dave Beardsley. I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner. My daughter went into labour early and I was on grandad duties for her elder one. How can I help?”
I rested against my car, watching Vinny pace around while on his phone. “Congratulations. I hope it all went well with the baby?”
“Super, actually. I now have a grandson – little Rowan. Thank you for asking.”
I decided not to engage in any more chit chat. “I need some more information on Kelly-Anne Marsh. Do you remember what happened to her after she was discharged?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. She was eighteen and homeless, so she was put into semi-independent living and given an adult social worker. Funnily enough, I saw her social worker in the supermarket at the weekend.. We see each other quite a bit – we live near to each other.” He sounded very chipper.
“I suppose you want her name – it’s Annie Grimes.
She’s based at Huddersfield now, but I have her number if it’ll be helpful. ”
“That would be more than helpful. What is it?”
I noted it down on my hand, juggling the phone and a pen, then ended the call, Vinny waiting rather impatiently for me to finish.
“You look like the cat that got the canary dipped in double cream.”
“You look like Dr Miz just started sending you photos from her holiday.” I kept my phone in my hand. “What’s up?”
“The incel theory’s a bust. The other two blokes on the thread both had tight alibis for the last twenty-four hours.
Nick’s found where they were posting from – one was at a pub in Bolton, the other was in A and E with a broken arm, but still managing to post some really vile shit.
We’ve got enough on him to look at him for a couple of other things though – fucking piece of work. What’ve you got?”
I gave him the low down about having the details for Kelly-Anne’s social worker.
“You don’t think the killer’s a women, do you?” He pulled his face, as if a woman couldn’t be capable.
“I think it could be. We know she was bullied because of her weight.”
“So this is a revenge thing?”
I started driving, Vinny fussing with his seatbelt.
“Maybe.”
“Your mate the profiler thinks it was a man though. Are you saying he’s wrong?”
“Maybe.” I was thinking about his lecture, the paper I’d seen on his desk. “He thought we were on the right lines with the incel thing.”
“Probably because it’s in the news at the moment. And we didn’t have anything else to go on.” Vinny folded his arms and I was pretty sure he was closing his eyes. I decided to break suddenly when we got to the lights.
“I’m going to phone Annie Grimes now. Can you manage to not snore while I speak to her?”
“I don’t snore.”
“I’d rather not ever find out. Here, put that number in.” I angled my arm so he could type it into the hands free.
A woman with a soft Yorkshire accent answered, quietly spoken. I introduced myself and mentioned Vinny was in the car too.
“Yes, Dave said you would call. It’s about Kelly-Anne, isn’t it?”
“It is. I believe you were her social worker after she was discharged from Lindridge Psychiatric Unit.”
“I was. For about eighteen months, and then she completely disappeared. She’d been living first of all in semi-independent housing, usually used for care leavers who need more support than they’d get independently.
It wasn’t the best place for her – some of the other girls were violent, and Kelly-Anne was an easy target.
She’d managed to sit her A-Levels while she was at Lindridge, so she applied to university to study psychology, and moved into the Halls of Residence.
I helped her apply for various grants, and she was successful.
” Annie’s words were fond; I could hear affection in them.
“She succeeded then?”
“She did. She was a quiet thing, but not selectively mute any more. Studying psychology was great for her as I think she understood herself better. She carried on with therapy too, all on the NHS, but reliable. I saw her every six weeks, then eight weeks and then she disappeared. Dropped out just before the end of her first year. The university actually contacted me to ask if I knew what’d happened. ”
“Where did she go?” Was she the first victim?
“We don’t know. She’d cleared out her room in halls.
Everything was taken and the room pristine.
She’d withdrawn all her money from her bank accounts.
She left a note in her room, very brief, thanking everyone for how they’d helped her, but she needed a fresh start, so it was never treated as a missing person.
She was an adult and at the time, not vulnerable.
I’ve never heard anything from her since. ”
Wrigley paced from one side of the office to the other, looking ahead of him all the time, right through anyone in his line of sight.
“We need to find two women: Kelly-Anne Marsh, last known whereabouts is Leeds, seven years ago, and Sophie Davies. One or both could be a victim or a potential victim. Or we can’t discount that one of them could be our killer.
We’re also looking for the three men you can see in this photo – we’ve aged them as to how they may look now. Nick, where are we up to online?”
I half-listened to Nick bring everyone up to speed on what online digging had been done on the three boys in the photos from Aberwyn.
I was combing through information sent from Leeds University pertaining to Kelly-Anne.
She’d been a bright and conscientious student, assignments in on time and high marks for each one.
Kept herself to herself, or so I found when I managed to get in touch with one of her contemporaries who’d been in the same halls and on her course, sharing a couple of seminars, who was now still at the university and had just completed a PhD.
“I was sure I saw her recently,” Georgie Holland had said. “Or I saw someone who reminded me of her. It was a shame she moved – she was just starting to come out of her shell. What happened to her?”
Which was the question of the moment.
Kelly-Anne Marsh had ceased to exist. Disappeared. Disappeared after she’d said she wanted a fresh start.
The question was, what did that fresh start entail?